A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words
by EmilyAnn003
Summary: Emily always had a good life. A loving mother, a spoiling father; she couldn't ask for anything greater. But one day at a certain art gallery could be the thing that screws it all up. Self-insert/OC fic. If you're going to hate, at least give the story a chance first! xx
1. Chapter 1

_I'm back! This time I've decided to write a fan-fic on the game __**Ib,**__ and take a short break from Resident Evil. I hope you don't mind :P Anyway, this fanfic is pretty much an OC/SI. Instead of Ib, it's my mind with Ib's lifestyle. You'll see, haha. I hope that doesn't scare you away, I promise I won't completely ruin the story/game! Just trust me! Well, I hope you all enjoy this story, and I'll see you next time!_

It was an early afternoon on a Saturday, one of my favorite days of the week—the other being Sunday—and my parents and I were on our way to an art gallery of a famous artist named Guretena. He was long ago passed and my mother absolutely loved his artwork. It was unique in an indescribably beautiful way.

We'd been driving down a busy street for the past hour or so and I'd been simply gazing out of the window, astonished by all of the old fashioned buildings. I'd always had a certain fascination with vintage items; clothes, buildings, cars, you name it. My parents shared this fascination, but not nearly as great as I.

"Did you remember everything, Emily?" My mother asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"Yes, mother." I replied sweetly, continuing to look at all of the people on the street.

"Oh! Do you have your handkerchief? You know, the one you got for your birthday?" Before I could answer, she spoke again. "Keep it in your pocket, okay? Don't lose it!"

"Yes, mother."

I was raised responsibly, taught to say please and thank you, sir and ma'am, and I had a great childhood. We've always been a wealthy family, I guess you could say. We mostly kept to ourselves, except for the other housewives mother occasionally liked to invite over, and we never spent money on anything we didn't need. We were pretty old fashioned, but I can't say I wasn't pleased with my life.

We arrived at the exhibition and you could just barely make out the sounds of a violin and a piano playing classical music on the speakers over-head.

"Well… we're here." My mother said as we entered the building. "This is your first time in an art gallery, right, Emily?" I nodded. "That's right; you've only seen the pictures I've shown you online!"

"Should we get to the reception desk?" My father asked, gesturing towards the desk at the front of the room.

"Ah, yes, let's get some pamphlets as well."

I followed my parents up to the reception desk, and as my father was speaking with the man standing behind the counter I turned to my mother. "Mother, may I have a look around?"

"Really, Emily? Oh, alright. Just don't wander off too far, okay?"

With a 'Yes, mother.' I headed for a room to our right. There was a large painting of a fish on the floor, and reading the plaque in front of it, I learned it was named _Abyss of the Deep_, inspired by Guretena's fascination with the fact that there are places in the world where man will never stand. I didn't quite understand it, but walked away anyway. After wandering around for a good ten minutes, I headed back to the front room, only to find my parents still chatting with the man at the reception desk. Seeing people head up a flight of stairs behind him, I decided too as well; maybe there was more art up there.

I was right; there was just as much art upstairs as there was downstairs. There were three statues, all in red, yellow, and blue and all without a head named _Death of the Individual._ I'm not going to pretend I fully understood Guretena's work, but maybe that was the point. You weren't supposed to get it, just admire it, and having the best part of the work be the mystery of it.

Wandering around a little while longer, I found a large painting in the back. No one was around so I approached it. The painting appeared to simply be several different paintings jumbled together into one. Looking closer, I read the name _Fabricated World._ As soon as I stepped back, the lights flickered on and off, and the classical music quickly faded away. Getting a bit curious, I headed back around the corner, only to see that everyone in the room had disappeared. That was a bit disconcerting, seeing as there was just about eight people there only a minute ago.

I decided to head downstairs, but nobody was there either. As soon as I stepped down from the last step, the lights flickered a bit before going out completely. There was something about the dense silence and the eerie darkness that sent chills down my spine. I walked briskly back into the room with the fish and called out.

"Hello?" I said with worry, but got no answer.

I checked everywhere, calling out for my parents or anyone who could hear me, but got no response. As I walked past the rose titled_ Embodiment of Spirit_, I heard a cough from behind me. I turned around quicker than I meant to and nearly lost balance, but caught myself before I fell back on the statue. Looking forward, I saw a painting of a man I must have missed earlier named _The Coughing Man_. Could he have been the one who…?

I shook my head. That's insane; I must've just imagined it.

I went back to the main entrance only to find that the doors were locked. That's when I started to get worried. With nothing else to do, I ran back upstairs. I began to panic, calling out for anyone, but still got no response. At one point I ran by a painting of two fruit when suddenly one of them fell right in front of my eyes. I blinked multiple times, but no matter how many times I looked away, when I turned back it was still there.

There was something going on, but I couldn't process in my mind what it was. Maybe it was a prank, or some kind of hostage situation, I didn't know. I just wanted to get out of that place.

Not knowing what else to do, I ran back to _Fabricated World_ and was surprised when I saw blue paint seeping out from the bottom of the painting. I bent down to touch it, to see if it was real, when the words _'Come Emily_' in red appeared on the floor. When I turned back around, the blue paint had formed words. They wrote '_come down below emily, ill show you some place secret'. _As crazy as it sounds, I thought it would be a good idea to listen to who, or whatever was speaking to me, and ran back down stairs.

At first I didn't notice any changes, but then running back into the main room I noticed footprints on the ground, leading to the floor painting. I took cautious steps forward; could this be what the words meant by '_come down below_'? I didn't know what else to do; I tried every exit but nothing worked. Maybe it was something in the building messing with my head, I don't know, but next thing I knew, I was jumping into a pool of blue paint.

_So how was that for a first chapter? The next chapters might be a bit longer; we'll just have to see how I want to section everything. So thanks for reading, and it would mean a lot if you stuck around for chapter two! Thanks again! ^^_


	2. Chapter 2

_And I'm back! Here's chapter 2 of A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words! Sorry to disappoint, but this chapter is a bit slow, seeing as I don't have anyone to socialize with yet… YET. Teehee. Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter anyways, and as always, reviews mean the world to me! :D_

I squeezed my eyes shut tight as I was engulfed in the mysterious blue liquid. I could feel it all around me, but from what I could tell my clothes and body were completely dry. It didn't necessarily feel as if I were falling, I just had this excruciating dizzy-feeling in my head reminding me of when I was a kid and my father had pushed the merry-go-round too fast, resulting in my mother scolding him on the way home for making me nauseas.

Once the dizziness had finally subsided, I cautiously raised my eyelids. I was sitting on the floor in a long, narrow hallway. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all painted blue, and to my right were two golden-framed paintings of cliffs and chunks of rocks serving as bridges over water. The water in the right painting was blue, as the left painting's was red.

I hadn't the slightest idea of how jumping into the painting was possible, or how it even helped my situation, but something told me it was… right, for lack of a better word. I stood up slowly and shook the rest of the dizziness out of my head. Ahead of me was a table with an open book and a quill next to it. I furrowed my brows in confusion, but decided it best to just leave it alone. On the right wall next to the table was a blue door. I jiggled the knob, only to find it locked. Huffing in frustration, I turned back around and quickly paced to the other end of the hallway.

As I got more towards the end of the hallway, faint letters began appearing on the wall. They read _come… come… come…_ and the legibility increased as I proceeded down the dark corridor. At the end was another door with a table that had a beautiful red rose placed in an antique vase that appeared as if it had had dozens of owners before whoever claimed it then.

Upon looking closer at the flower, it seemed… familiar, as if we were connected in some way I had long ago forgotten. As I continued inspecting it, I felt the urge to grab it and obtain it as my own. One side of my brain was telling me to take it, that it was _mine_ and I _needed_ it, but the other part of me felt something suspicious about the rose, that I should just leave and get the heck out of here, even though I knew it was impossible as there was no way back up and out of the painting. But the more I battled with myself, the dizziness began to return. At first it was just a lingering feeling, but it slowly intensified and made me nauseas. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly snatched the rose out of its place in the vase and as my fingers clamped around the thornless stem, the feelings of sickness vanished, only leaving me a bit light-headed.

Keeping the rose in my hand, I pushed the table aside and opened the door. The room was entirely blue, just as the hallway was, and there was a painting of a woman with long blue hair that hung over and out of the frame on the back wall. There was only a single key laying on the floor, but I stepped over it to read the plaque under the large painting.

"_When the rose wilts," _it read. "_So too will you wither away…"_

"Well that's a bit disconcerting…" I whispered to no one in particular.

Seeing no other purpose of the room, I picked up the key and left, assuming it unlocked the door at the other end of the hallway.

When I reentered the corridor the first thing I noticed was the words _'come… come…' _had been replaced by bright red letters that spelled out _'THEIF… THEIF… THEIF…'_ What was that about?

Ignoring the letters, I continued walking, pushing the mysterious happenings out of my mind. I just needed to get out of there as soon as possible. What if my parents were somewhere in there looking for me? They couldn't have just vanished into thin air, I was sure they were worried at the least.

The next room had completely gotten rid of the blue, and replaced it with green. There was a long corridor ahead, and another area to the right that showed paintings of various bugs: a ladybug, a bee, a butterfly, and a spider. Continuing forward, I noticed a pillar in the middle of the walkway reading _'Beware of edges.'_ As soon as I began walking I immediately knew why: as you proceeded down the hallway, different hands shot out at you on either side, each hand a dark black color with long sharp claws. There was another painting and another door at the end of the hallway, but the door was locked. I decided to check out the other way this time, so I turned around and avoided the hands once again.

Further down the room, past the paintings of the bugs, there were more paintings, these showing the four stages of a caterpillar's life. There was a door at the end of the room, but in between that door and the next was a wide hole in the floor, but not wide enough that it was uncrossable with my long legs. I carefully jumped over the gap and proceeded into the next room.

The first thing I noticed was the headless statue in the back of the room, with the tiny green key lying in front of it. For some reason, this whole scenario was foreboding to me. I felt as if the stone would magically come to life and start chasing me. But of course, I had been taught better than that and merely laughed at my childish thoughts. Looking back on it, I guess I should have seen it coming when the statue did _exactly_ what I predicted.

I bent down to pick up the key and when I looked back up, the statue had moved closer to me. I slowly stood to my feet and took a few cautious steps back. At first nothing happened, and I figured I was imagining things, but after I had been standing still for a few seconds, the thing practically lunged for me with its arms outstretched.

I bolted out of there faster than I ever thought I could. When I reached the hole in the floor, I was already running so fast that when I jumped, I nearly face-planted into the wall in front of me. Before I was out of the door, the statue had followed me out of the room and tried to get to me, but fell through the gap before it could.

Breathless, I fumbled with the doorknob until it finally opened, trying desperately to piece together a logical explanation of what was going on. That was an inanimate object, it should _not_ be moving! I stealthily made my way down the hand-hallway one last time, my head throbbing in fear and confusion, and I unlocked the green door.

In this room, the walls were a light brown color, while the floor was a mustard-yellow. There were two large, black circles on the back wall, with a fish-shaped hole in the middle of it. There were also two doors, one on the left and one on the right, and I decided to go left first.

In the left room, there were seven boxes on the floor, four on the bottom and three on the top. Where the eighth would have been placed, there lay a painting of a stick figure. When I approached it, words appeared under him reading _'Play hide and seek?'_ and then he disappeared.

Oh god. I was always horrible at this game as a child. Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself before I went looking for this thing. I didn't know what would happen if I looked in a box and didn't find the thing there, and, frankly, I didn't want to find out.

The first box I opened was the middle one to the right. What was in it wasn't at all a small stickman, but a naked woman who, with a feminine scream, slapped me right across the face. I clutched my cheek in pain; it'd hurt a lot more than I'd expected. Looking down, I noticed a rose petal on the ground. I picked it up and examined it, noticing that the rose in my shirt pocket had lost a petal. Subconsciously placing my hand back on my cheek, I tried to remember what I had read about this rose.

"_When the rose wilts, so too will you wither away…"_

My eyes widened, realizing that this rose was my potential life-support. The more I was hurt, the more petals I would lose, and when all the petals had fallen off…

I shuddered, pushing that thought out of my head. I only had two petals left; I would need to be _very_ careful if I wanted to make it out alive.

_Well, that wasn't so bad! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I PROOOMMIISSSEEE the next chapter will be sooo much more eventful! So please review and tell me what you think so far! :D_


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